Part 6 (1/2)
CHAPTER EIGHT.
The spell known as Half-Death had earned its name in more ways than one. Conclave considered it an outlawed incantation, its use punishable by imprisonment as well as various painful incentives designed to convince the offending mage not to try it again.
A spell which could transport its user from one place to another in an instant exacted its own heavy toll. Silhara nearly killed himself employing it as a way for him and Martise to escape a lich. Three rapid-fire transports of two people together and he'd been reduced to a senseless bloodied heap.
This time he suffered no damage from the spell. The gray plane in which he traveled didn't resist his manipulations as hard or drain his power as much as the living world did. The most he suffered was a popping in his ears and the welcome impact of his wife's body as she threw herself at him with a glad cry.
”Sil...Master!”
Martise's arms wrapped around his neck, nearly strangling him in her enthusiasm. He lifted her off her feet, trying to not shake with relief at having her in his arms once more, safe and sound. He pressed his face into the spot where her shoulder curved into her neck and breathed. The putrid reek permeated everything in this G.o.ds forsaken place, but Silhara fancied he still smelled the hint of orange flower on her skin and the soap she and Gurn used to launder the blankets.
He wanted to hold her like this for hours, an indulgence that would have to wait until after they escaped. Martise must have thought the same thing because she ended their embrace and stepped back to stare at him with a critical eye.
”Blood all over you. You faced Megiddo.”
”I did, but this is from spellwork getting here. I've leashed your king for a moment, but it won't last.”
She winced and caressed his arm with her fingertips. Her hair was a tangled mess, and fatigue painted lavender shadows under her eyes. She'd obviously dressed under enchantment and without benefit of a light. Her skirts were inside out, and she had donned one of his s.h.i.+rts instead of hers. It fell almost to her knees, and the sleeves were rolled to her elbows. No woman ever born was more beautiful.
So focused on tracking his wife through incantation and so relieved at finding her, he barely registered the structure at his back, incongruous as it squatted on the featureless landscape beneath the ever-changing sky. The cottage door hung open, and he tensed at the sight of a hazy shape hovering just inside the doorway. It stepped onto the threshold, revealing a wide-eyed woman of regal bearing, garbed in fine clothing.
”Who the h.e.l.l are you?” he practically snarled at her and smirked when she jumped and retreated into the cottage.
”Peace, Acseh. He's a friend,” Martise called to her in Glimming. Silhara scowled at her. ”My friend,” she corrected. ”There's no need to hide.”
He refused to second that notion. Nothing and no one here was safe from him except the wife he'd cracked open a demon's cage to retrieve. He watched, narrow-eyed, as the woman Martise called Acseh ventured out of the cottage, keeping a wide distance between herself and him as she came to stand to one side of Martise.
”Why is there a house in the middle of a demon's world?” he asked in the language he and Martise shared in their world.
She answered him in the same tongue with a faint smile. ”That's a story in itself and one we don't have time for now. Acseh is human, a prisoner here. From Megiddo's age I think.” Her voice softened so only he could hear. ”He calls her Damkiana. It's Makkadian for 'mistress of earth and heaven.' It's the name of a Makkadian G.o.ddess, sacred to witches.”
Silhara's eyebrows rose as he stared at Acseh who stared back for a moment before her gaze slid away from his. ”Is that so?” Martise's nod and intent expression revealed her thoughts matched his. Demons using affectionate terms-this place grew stranger every second.
Martise continued. ”She doesn't know the meaning of the name. The king won't tell her, and neither have I as of yet.”
Silhara scrutinized Acseh before crooking a finger at her. ”Come closer.” He rolled his eyes when she shook her head and took two steps back. ”Fine,” he said. ”I can do this as easily with you standing there.”
Both women gasped when he hurled a walnut-sized ball of red light at Acseh. She tried to leap away but was held fast by Silhara's sorcery. The small light swelled to enclose her in a crimson coc.o.o.n that pulsed and hummed.
Acseh's eyes were the size of saucers, and she swatted at the light, arms flailing as she sought to brush it off her skirts.
He half expected a protest from Martise, but she stood quietly next to him. Sympathy clouded her expression, but she said nothing, allowing the spell that sought out demonic possession do its work.
The light faded and disappeared, leaving Acseh shaking and teary-eyed. Martise didn't approach her, but she offered an apology in Glimming. ”I'm sorry, Acseh,” she said. ”I want to believe you are as much an unlucky human as I am, but I don't know you. That spell verifies you're no demon or host to one.”
”It doesn't mean you can trust her,” Silhara said. He wasn't in the least apologetic for using the spell on an unwilling target.
Martise sighed. ”I know.” She glanced down, and it was her turn to startle. ”The books were right. You found the sword.” She stretched out a hand, not quite touching the scabbard where it rested at Silhara hip, partially hidden by his cloak. ”It feels...”
”Foul,” he finished for her. He'd grown more used to the skin-crawling sensation that danced up and down his leg, but if he didn't need the blade to control the demon while they lingered here, he'd gladly unhook it from his belt, snap the thing in half and toss the pieces in the dirt.
Martise didn't withdraw her hand, and her brow furrowed. ”It is foul, but something else as well.”
He shrugged. ”Whatever it is, it's bought us a little time. Not much though. Are you ready?”
She nodded. ”Since I got here. What's your tether to our world? What's mine?”
”I splattered enough blood on the temple steps to harness a team of horses.” He traced the deepening lines in her forehead with his fingertip. ”You know the price of difficult rituals, apprentice.”
Her frown became a full scowl. ”I don't have to like it. You've shed so much of your own blood for your magic, it's a wonder you aren't bled dry by now.”
He didn't argue her point. He'd bled plenty during invocations and considered the price worth it. He was blessed with an extraordinarily powerful Gift and the skills to use it to his maximum benefit. If it meant spilling some of his own blood to exercise that power, so be it.
He was much more reluctant to spill Martise's. ”Your spirit necklace is hidden beneath a pile of stones near the temple. If that and my magic don't anchor you to our world, nothing will.”
”Please. Don't leave me here.”
Silhara and Martise both turned at Acseh's plea. His brows snapped together. ”You speak our language?” His question, in Glimming, was a whip's kiss, and Acseh flinched.
She shook her head. ”I don't need to. You talk with your faces and bodies as well. It's easy enough to know of what you speak.”
Martise tugged on his sleeve. ”We can't, in good conscience, abandon her to this fate.”
”Yes we can.” He took a breath to argue more when a blot of darkness appeared before him. Hands with an iron grip lifted him off his feet and hurled him backwards through the cottage doorway. His spine shuddered, and black stars exploded across his vision as he slammed back against a wall of rock. Martise's screams were distant in his ears as he fell and rolled.
He barely regained his feet before he was thrown once more, punched sideways into a trestle table that tipped and fell half on him, pinning him between it and the opposite wall. A sharp pain throbbed in his left side, and his sight blurred. He clawed for the sheathed sword trapped beneath him.
”Touch it, and I'll snap her neck.”
Silhara froze at Megiddo's command. The demon stood a few steps away, pale and black and malevolent. Martise stood in front of him, her eyes wide and nostrils flared. Megiddo's hand curved under her chin toward the side of her jaw. His other arm wrapped around her waist, holding her close. His faint smile might have frosted windows from the inside were he in the living world.
”Speak or reach for the sword, and there will be no saving her, even if you manage to return to your home. Broken and disfigured here. Dead there. How much are you willing to sacrifice, sorcerer, so that I may act your puppet?”
Silhara wanted nothing more than to spit his adversary on the demon blade and roast him over an open fire, but he held his tongue. He stared into Martise's eyes, trying with only a gaze to rea.s.sure her. Her terror was palpable in the room-to him, to Megiddo and to Acseh who stood near the door, ashen and still.
Megiddo gestured to him with a thrust of his chin. ”Take off your belt and toss it toward me.”
That was easier said than done with him half pinned by the overturned table. Silhara did as instructed, careful to always keep his hands in sight. After much squirming and sweating, he managed to free the belt from the twisted fabric of his cloak and threw the sheathed sword over the table where it landed closer to Acseh than to Megiddo.
The Wraith King shook his head. ”Difficult to the last.” The tone of his voice s.h.i.+fted, softened, and he addressed Acseh without taking his eyes off Silhara. ”Damkiana, kick the sword to me. Don't touch it with your hands.”
Acseh hesitated for a moment, gaze darting back and forth between Megiddo and Silhara before she did as the king commanded and pushed the glowing scabbard across the floor with her foot. It spun until he stopped its spin with the toe of his boot.
Heedless of the fact she was embraced by a demon and enrobed by cursed shadows and d.a.m.ned souls, Martise did her best to climb up her captor and away from the sword where it lay near her feet.